Bloomberg Businessweek Weekend - August 5, 2022

to escalating tensions between the US and China. On Tuesday, how Speaker Nancy Pelosi became the highest ranking American official to visit Taiwan in twenty five years. We're gonna have more on that in just a moment. Also ahead on the program, stories from a special double issue of Bloomberg Business Week that document the war on women playing out across the nation. It's one that's reached new heights with the Supreme Courts reversal of rov Wade earlier this year.

First up, though, we spotlight the woman who made headlines all week, the Speaker of the House, Snancy Pelosi, Bloomberg's Creedy goopd and I spoke with Bloomberg senior government reporter Ian Marlowe about her East Asian trip and White put Beijing on edge. She's a particularly strong China hawk who uh, you know, has been defying China on a lot of these things, on human rights, on on trade issues, on

other things for for for most of her career. I mean, if you look back, um to just after the Tienamen Square crackdown, in her and a couple of other senators unfurled a little banner in Tanneman Square, uh, you know, commemorating those who died something you know that that seems unthinkable now but shows you just how far she's willing to go in terms of you know, sticking up for you know, you know, her her values and other things, um, at the risk of at that point personal safety, but

also um on this trip geopolitical ramifications. I mean, she was willing to go through with this. Um. You know, we can talk about whether she was ever going to realistically be able to back down after the trip was announced, but you know, she was willing to go through this even though there were obviously huge consequences. And I think you know, a visit to Taiwan at any given point in time, for for China is very sensitive. Um. They protest you know, regularly when these types of delegations go.

But it's just the the senior nous of her going um is just you know, a little bit too much for for for China to bear right now, especially given the sensitive domestic dynamics in China. Well, I think what's what's so interesting about the time of year is it's happening at the same time as you have two massive

bills I believe passed through through Congress. You have a fifty two billion dollar Chips Act over five years, and then on top of that, you have this order from the Commerce Department I believe too for a lot of these names like Intel and Video to actually not that dis incentivizes them to increase their fab production over in Taiwan and China. Yeah, it's not it's not just about human rights, it's not just about ideology. It's about you know,

strategu ega economic competition between the two. And she's been part of a very you know, generally bipartisan push to sort of decouple from China and to push the US sort of manufacturing industry, especially in high tech, towards a more competitive edge with China. You know, after a few decades where China really has benefited from you know, relatively

stable and friendly uh international economic order. If this really was a goal of the administration, why not put even more money towards it, you know, with any manufacturing countries want to bring it home, they want to bring it close to, you know, to their other industrial base. But America is not the only place that is, uh, you know, putting these types of bills in place, dedicating billions of

dollars to you know, funding those types of companies. And I think the brute reality here is that this technology, this manufacturing capacity is not in America right now, and it won't be for for many years to come. And that's both structural and it's also a matter of policy with America sort of being to this compared to you know, whether it's places like Taiwan or South Korea or China itself.

That was Bloomberg Senior government reporter Ian Marlowe. We turned now to our next Yes, my Bloomberg quick take colleagues, Scarlet Fou. She worked in Hong Kong for eight years and has a personal connection to Taiwan. I used to visit Taiwan regularly. I would go every other summer because my grandparents lived there. My parents grew up in Taiwan. They were born in China, but they fled to Taiwan with the Nationalist government, grew up in Taiwan, and we

would go back and visit family regularly. So I've really was able to see Taiwan evolved and developed from a society that lived under martial law to a society that was holding free elections. So what's so important about it? Why do we care about this particular location? In real estate? Is location, location, location, And that's kind of the case here because Taiwan is about a hundred miles off of china South eastern coast. If you were to look at it on a map, it is the biggest land mass

between Japan and the Philippines. So it's in this crucial position, and so the US and every other country in the Asi Asia Pacific region seize Taiwan as crucial to containing China and its military ambitions and economic ambitions. That's just strategically. Then you've got, of course, the economics. The world is completely dependent on Taiwan semiconductors. The island is responsible for

about nine of the world's most advanced chips. These are the chips that power your smartphone, your car, the AI and your smartphone, the AI in your car, so it makes the world go around. Right now, talk to us a little bit about China's relationship with Taiwan and where it stands right now. It's really really complicated, is the

short answer. It's it's really actually quite convoluted as well, because if you go back to recent history, Japan had to give up Taiwan to China after losing World War Two. But there was a civil war in China, so the Nationalist government that was in China was defeated by the Communist Party. They fled the mainland and set up shop

in Taiwan. They were supported by the US government, which recognized the Nationalist Party as the rightful government but temporarily displaced government of China, and everything switched when the US decided to change sides and recognize the Communist government in Beijing instead. In doing so, it recognized that Beijing is the seat of government for China. There's only one China, and it is the government in Beijing. China has a one China policy. The US agrees with that, uh Taiwan

is part of China. The US agrees with that, but at the same time, it hasn't really clarified what it would do if China were to take Taiwan. Taking Taiwan by force, taking Taiwan by welcoming it back not clear. There's a lot of intentional ambiguity when it comes to Taiwan and where it fits in with the One China policy when it comes to how the US is going to act on anything. Our thanks to Quick Take Scarlet

Foo for her insight. With tensions between the world's pre eminent superpowers on the rise once again coming up next. Pelosi's visit to Taiwan is just one source of stress for China. Another is the multibillion dollar banking scandal embroiling the country's rural lending market. Will explain when we come back. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week. This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Bloomberg Quick

Takes Tim Spinovik from Bloomberg Radio. Grassroots boycotts and epic banking scandal and over leveraged housing developers are stoking concerns that China may be on the verge of a Lehman Brothers moment. In a story you'll find in the finance section of the magazine this week, bankers at five local lenders are accused of stealing billions of dollars from depositors. Business Week Markets and Finance editor Pat mcneer is here to explain the crisis and confidence and the dynamics of

China's rural lending system. It's actually very similar to I think things we might we might know of here, where you have these kind of networks of local banks, um that are are there to kind of you know, plow money into the countryside, uh and businesses that have kind of historically not had enough capital UM. Editing this story, I was really reminded of kind of analogs to the savings and loan business here in the United States a long time ago, very very similar kind of situation a

lot of ways. And what some of these rural lenders were doing was they were offering people um higher rates to attract deposits. And some you know, alleged bad actors got involved in this. Uh. There was a company that had that was a major shareholder in five of these rural lenders. There was essentially a scam and then that created really a mass movement of depositors demanding their money back.

Pat talked to us about the trust factor here, because if you need to rmate to make a lending system work, at the core of it as you need that trust factor. What is at stake here when it comes to whether or not this is a system that can get recovered. Yeah, I mean, I think like this is actually a broader issue in China generally. You know, this is one of a couple of stories that we've been monitoring. We've also

been monitoring this boycott on mortgages. Now this's a there's a different situation, but it involves developers who've built houses that they're not delivering. Um. So you've had a lot of consumers who have in China who have really gotten a push for you know, give us your money and we will give you a higher rate by this apartment and you'll you'll, you'll you'll have you know, I will deliver this apartment. And they're finding that like these these

promises are not being made good. On the difference in China and here is that then China also has a very powerful state that also has you know, large ownership shares in all of the big big state banks and can kind of come in and exert some control. But we're just seeing this this control fray. And so we're seeing you know, protests on the street and grassroot movements to kind of you know, resist these things when when they come along and really hurt ordinary Chinese consumers and households.

Do those ordinary Chinese consumers and how solds you're referring to do do they have any power when they go to the streets. Well, I mean it looks like they exerted some recently. You know, there was there was a very large protest in Henan Province, um, and you know they were met with um. You know, there were kind of violent clashes with security forces. I understand a lot of them are sort of playing clothes, um and UM. It looked pretty bad. And now we're kind of seeing

that here are the authorities. They're they're coming in. They're saying, you know, we're going to step in and we're gonna make depositors whole, and we're gonna crack down on this royal ending system that we had earlier kind of loosened

up on in order to make capital more available. And this is that kind of sea sign that you know from here in New York as I edit these stories and I see them, that you really see out of China is this there's both this kind of tight control and then a kind of a freewheeling consumer finance sector and authorities are always kind of trying to find like the balancing point for this, and when it doesn't work, things happen on the streets that consumer finances actors so

crucial here because I mean, didn't China have and correct me if I'm wrong, Pat, but didn't China have this massive kind of retail trading boom that it never quite recovered from them? I want to say. I want to say a lot of Chinese stocks are owned by the Chinese consumers. So to see it once again become a consumer lending story, I think it's pretty interesting when it

comes to how developed Chinese markets are actually getting. Yeah, and you know, and we've also seen all these issues with like wealth management products that have been heavily sold and then you know, maybe turned out to be riskier

than people thought. And then you know, you've seen China kind of trying to decide what it wants to do with these companies that these big tech companies that have I P O and um, you know, suddenly start to look like both you know, separate power centers as large companies can be, but also maybe are taking on new financial risks that the regulators are trying to get their

their hands around. I mean, at one point, you know, there was an online lender through a phone app that you know I I think was like the largest money market fund in the world. Um and uh so you have this really kind of protean, dynamic consumer sector sometimes with a lot of envelopes being push combined with a state that both you know, really like wants to encourage investment, but also you know, has its eye on uh, you know, social control, and you know, and and and then you

see things kind of you know, happen in terms of protests. Well, pat speaking of social control, the story that you edited in the current issue of the upcoming issue I should say a Bloomberg Business Week magazine, it ends with COVID zero.

So we got to talk a little bit about what's going on with COVID zero and not necessarily an update, but the way that it's happening on the economy right now, not just from the perspective of economic growth or lack thereof, but from the perspective of politically, uh, and what it means for China's future in terms of leadership. Yeah, I mean, I'll be careful because I'm not an expert on what's

happening with COVID zero in China. But I do think that there is the kind of overall overlay of you know, on top of all of this, you know, you have the fact that you know, China has been very strict in its COVID controls and that's creating a lot of social pressures and also you know, constraints constraints on business. I mean, is one of the people we talked to, it's like, all this stuff is another risk getting baked

into a big risk cake in China. I mean that big risk cake is the exact I want to say disincentive for a lot of Western investors to hot back into China. The story isn't exactly supportive of of that, is it. No, you know, it's tricky though, I mean, it's it's hard to get a view from this in some ways from from outside. You know, we've seen you know, all of these problems with ever grand unfolding last year, and you look at it and you think like, well,

is this China's Layman moment? And then things seem to kind of move a little bit uh slowly after things start to look bad, and then somehow these stories kind of keep coming back, so you sort of wonder is this going to be, you know, going to go very slowly? And then all of a sudden That was pat Rickneer, Business Week's Markets and Finance editor with a story from the magazine. You can find it online, on the terminal and on news stands now. Our thanks to Bloomberg's Creedy

Gupta for joining us there as well. Still ahead on Bloomberg Business Week, we shift our focus back to domestic challenges in the world of finance, specifically in venture capital. Amy nu Yakis, the CEO of the venture firm ant Miss,

joins us on the other side. This is Bloomberg broadcasting from the financial capital of the world, Bloomberg eleven Frio in New York to Washington, d C. Bloomberg to Boston, Bloomberg one oh six one to San Francisco, Bloomberg nine sixty to the country Sirius xm Chado one nine team and around the globe. The Bloomberg Business app and Bloomberg

Radio dot com. This is Bloomberg Business Week. Bloomberg News reported back in June the adventure capital funding for the second quarter hit its lowest level since To help us make sense of the tough conditions and get insight into where women entrepreneurs are focusing their efforts, Bloomberg's Katie Grayfield and I spoke with Amy Noyakis, who's the co founder in CO c I O at the venture capital firm Anthemus. We've talked to her before about venture capital, of course,

and also about supporting women in venture capital. Amy, It's good to have you with us. How are you. I'm good, I'm good. I'm tired. It's been a very crazy, busy summer. Well what do you mean by that? Well, you know, I think it's been an interesting time for venture capital. Um. You know, we've heard a lot about this sort of idea that might be a silent crash happening in DC, or that we're at the beginning of the end of VC as the market to dry it up. But you know,

I'm telling you from my perspective, I'm not seeing it. Um. I mean, the current market environment has really put capital location decisions to the test, and I think people have made some big mistakes in the last couple of years. But the industry wide correction that we're seeing this year isn't a surprise to any of us who have been doing this for decades, nor is it affecting all companies are all investors in the same way. I think it's

just simply a needed correction. Right. For the last ten plush years, we've seen unprecedented amounts of capital shifting into venture capital, particularly the tech sector, inspiring entrepreneurs and would be founders to build new digital companies that are challenging the old guard and most importantly or make a lot of sense. But in the majority of these cases, the markets and the employees and the consumers these companies have

reaped a ton of benefits through this evolution. However, there are lots of founders and investors alike who have attempted to build companies that aren't solving real problems. They're not focusing on business fundamentals, and they're letting hubers get the best of them. Right. While the global funding has slowed, there are still plenty of great companies growing, expanding, and building.

And there are still plenty of companies out there, and so I'm kind of feeling like the bigger issue is how many of these people that have kind of jumped into the game in the last inning are really throwing things off right, Like, DC is hard and it's supposed debate. It's why the returns are so high. There's huge upside for investors that are finding and back in great companies. But the problem is, I think over the last couple of years, it's looked too easy and that's attracted a

lot of folks frankly don't belong in the game. And now that it's gotten a little harder again, you've got to look a little harder for the good ideas. You've got to be smarter about the way you value the companies. It's the dumb money that's disappeared, and it's taken a lot of promising companies with it. Give us some good ideas. Where are there still opportunities? Well, I listen on the investor side, I think there's a ton of opportunity in

the early stage. Um, it's still very much a sweet spot. A lot of the market contraction that we've seen has been in the later stage. I'm personally biased because we're at antemestic fans of the of the early stage strategy. But I think that if you're a quality early stage investor and you're in it for the long haul, you'll navigate this correction incredibly well. Valuations are getting haircuts if

they deserve. Dealfull In, competition for capital is sort of flowing a bit, and investors at the early stage, I think, are wealth positions. Got to focus on the fundamentals. You've got to stay from the away from the fluff. Hubrist. A great company is a great company, and there's always space for great companies. I'd say for the companies and the founders, they should probably take the advice that they should have heated years ago. Not all capital is the same.

Pay attention to who's backing your company, and don't get swindled by a heavy valuation that you know you can't back up. I mean, we've seen so many examples of that. I don't want to say they were, you know, swindled, but we've seen a lot of down rounds, uh in the past few months. Amy, Yeah, and listen, that's not surprising, right, I Mean, the roll on the purpose of a good venture capital capital investor hasn't changed. It is our job and should be our jard to deploy capital responsibly and

help grow portfolio companies. That doesn't mean that there's a one size fits all approach to how we do that. And I think the biggest issue for me is that so many of these players have jumped in eyes closed with little to no experience and how to build and support a quality company. And these are the folks that

have caused a lot of the pain in the market. Um, you know, I think some of the strategy is driven by hubris, and I don't think it's appropriate to write the entire sector off just because a large number of folks decided to jump into the d send naked before

checking if there was water in the pool. Right, Hey, I want to get an update on the female Innovator's Lab that you recently launched, And because when we talk about ventro capital, especially women in venture capital, we're talking like single digit percentage of venture capital goes to women

each year. Yeah, it's still I'm you know, it's still an area that we spent a lot of our time on an anthemous and I think a big part of that is because it was how we were founded, right, you know, I'm a woman founder of a company, and not only am I investor, but I'm somebody who started a company from scratch and watched how hard it was and difficult it was to raise capital to grow my company,

and there weren't a lot of supporters around UM. So when we looked across the entirety of the fintech sector, we wanted to make sure UM that we were playing a very solid roll in in sort of putting our money where our mouth is. And and so we've been backing women founders in Europe in the US for a couple of years now specifically and what we call the earliest venture studio stage, money and ideas coming together at the very beginning and helping these women build their company.

And I think it's a really great opportunity not only to see some fantastic businesses and help women, you know, get a leg up and grow, but also you know, as as as we've sort of found it's making a huge difference. That was Amy no yarkis co founder and co c i O at the adventure capital firm Anthemus. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week. Up next, we explore the latest salvos in America's war on women in the

aftermath of Rovie Wade's reversal. This is Bloomberg. You're listening to Bloomberg business Week with Carol Messer and Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stinovik from Bloomberg Radio. The latest issue of Bloomberg business Week magazine is a special double issue, with the entire feature section dedicated to the struggles facing women in America today and the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roevie Wade back in June may have been the breaking point.

Katie gray Felt and I are here with Business Week Economics Editor Christina Lynn Blad and Business Week Features Editor Daniel Sachs to explore this hard hitting and at times heartbreaking series of stories and personal accounts that have emerged since the ruling. Christina, I want to start with you and talk a little bit about this, this double issue, this section, and how it all came together. When did

you start thinking about it. It started as a conversation right after UM the leak of the memo, the Supreme Court memo. UM. It started actually with some members of our art department who are young mothers um and an editor editor in chief and it was you know, this idea. Actually the language we used at the beginning was it feels like there's a war on women going on in America.

And it grew out of there. We we sort of began to take stock like not just of of you know, the Supreme Court decision, but formula shortages that the past two years of you know, working from home, juggling, you know, school closures, and just sort of how women feel burnt out. And then this just really um, the Supreme Court decision just really felt like, you know, it just almost too much, too much to take. I can just add to see it.

It also just felt like overturning Row was just like something that just felt unimaginable and sort of the final straw um And and the leak was the first tip off to the disbelief. And then once it happened, we were like, not only do we have to do this issue, but we have to do this issue very quickly, because like the rage has just been on leave. And so what I really like about this issue is how many

different angles you attack it from. And we're going to get into a few here, but Christina, let's start with sort of the economic impact. What this means for women and all the advancements that women have made so far over the past decades. I think that people maybe weren't aware of actually how much research has been done on what abortion access means to women's own personal financial well being and how writ large what that means for the economy.

People have done, you know, research looking at this and and found that you know, for educational attainment like huge, huge factor, and and earnings and the types of careers that women end up end up in it, and and you multiply that sometimes two, three, four times for minorities. Actually there are a hundred and fifty four economists and researchers compiled this huge Amika's brief for the court, summarizing

all of these decades worth of research. But as we know, in the end, I mean, the majority opinion, if you read it, is framed very narrowly on constitutional grounds and did not really address any of that. One thing that I noticed in the wake of the leaked opinion back in May and then in the actual overturning of Roe v. Wade was the way that a lot of people started

talking about abortion and reproductive medical careacter differently. There was this move to really be public with experiences that many women and men had gone through. And I'm wondering if you could tell us about what I think is one of the most powerful features in the magazine, which features ten women sharing their stories about how an abortion changed

their life. Christina, I just talked about the studies and the research that we have telling this economic story, but we really wanted to humanize that and bring that to a personal level, UM and really find and find and have women share their own their own stories of how not only an abortion change their life personally, but their ability to earn a living, or their financial trajectory, or their ability to just live out their hopes and dreams. UM. And we really wanted to talk to a cross section

of women. We didn't just want to talk to, you know, a bunch of videos. Wanted to hear from women's CEOs. We wanted to hear from working class women. We want to hear from black women, UM, immigrants, women, really a cross section and there were certainly, UM we had two women who actually one is seventy six and one is eighty,

so they obviously had their abortions pre row. So not only did they share the kind of harrowing stories of what it was like to you know, get a phone number, call from a pay phone, have someone pick you up in a car to get an abortion, unsure if you will ever make it home, UM, but then be able to fifty five years later tell the story of how that enabled them to ask to have children, you know, fifteen years after that, and not only create financial stability

for themselves but for the next generation. UM. We spoke to a woman who grew up Mormon in Utah, UM and talked about hitting her professional feeling at the age of twenty two because being a white Mormon woman who pregnant, like that's it for your your professional your professional life. And so she was able to find a neighbor who helped give her the money to get an abortion, and she ended up leaving Utah and now she's not only carved out an amazing career for herself, she's married and

her husband's to stay at home father. We definitely heard from this cross section of women that in the you know, brown and black communities, UM, that is often taboo to talk about an abortion, and that sort of plays into a lot of the anti abortion rhetoric and campaigns that have gone on over the years. How you know the Dobb's ruling. Really, these women felt liberated, like we have to we have to get rid of the shave, and we have to talk about and share these stories that

may be uncomfortable. We even had a state senator open up to us and and talk about is something she's carried with her for decades, and since she's come out about it, she's discovered two other women in her family who also had abortion. This has unleashed not only rage among women, but just sort of like bringing these critical

conversations to the forefront. You know, when reading this this issue, the features, the articles, and the issue, one theme kept coming up was how deeply personal this is not just for the people featured, but for the way that we talked about reproductive rights here in the US and Christina, that's no exception for your own story and you got

deeply personal. Yeah, your essay here. Yes, I talked about an abortion I had at six, for the same reasons that Danielle was talking about this other person we interviewed. I wasn't ready. I had an idea of what I wanted my career trajectory to be. I was in the early parts of that had just gotten a master's degree and just motherhood wasn't part of that plan at that early. Um I now have two children. Sorry, I have two children. Um, it was it would be in years before I would

go on to have my first child. So yeah, I do think it's really important that that we normalize talking about this, that we get rid of this stigma, because we have to convince the world that that allowing women to plan the size and the timing of their families is their right and not only and it is add

it's not only impacting women. As to him, I think you mentioned earlier like this impact men, and I think some of some of that research Christina that you pointed to earlier talked about how you know the right to choose does have a ripple effect on men because obviously

there are men. The men are the other half of these this equation, and when you're talking about whether it's like teen pregnancies or pregnancies in your twenties, I mean that changes the trajectory of or cant change the trajectory of a guy's life too well. Danielle pushing forward. One of the stories that you edited, uh was specifically about digital privacy and this new abortion landskip that we're living in now. I mean, when you think about what people

are even searching, what apps they might have on their phone. Uh, there's concern about sort of those privacy protections that are

in place, one of you know. I think there's so many conversations happening coming out of this moment, and one of the ones that I think very quickly surfaced, specifically from the tech community and from abortion rights activists, is that we are now women are now living under women, trans women, non binary, We're now living under this kind of new surveillance date any moves you make, any digital moves you make, whether it's a period tracking app, your

web searches, text messages, and now it's like, well, actually investigators can get their hands on this data and potentially use this against me. And so there there's this horrific case out of Mississippi where a woman several years ago um not only went through the horrific experience of having to deliver a stillborn baby, but they went through the web searches and found that she at one point had searched for abortion pills, and so they brought murder charges

against her. It's like, I think it took a year for them to eventually drop them. But that is sort of like the dystopia, the dystopia that we're talking about. You know, activists are definitely saying, like, even when it comes to text messages, we should women should be using encrypted services like a signal or what'sapp? You know location, there's like location data that could be tracked about. You know, is she traveling to get an abortion out of state?

Or you know what's she searching for abortion pills online? The period tracking apps, there are millions and millions of women who have used these and um and the data can be shared, you know, with analytics firms who can hand over two investigators. A completely different world from when decades ago the ruling of Reevery Wade came down. Many thanks to Business Week editors Christina Lynn Bladden Daniel Sachs for sharing their stories and for shining a light on

these important issues. We really just scratch the surface. In this special double issue of Bloomberg Business Week, available on news stands now online at Bloomberg dot com slash Business weekend of course, on the Bloomberg terminal, we have more stories in there, including the political angle Democrats aren't forgiving Biden's slow response to the Row reversal, and then also how it's getting harder to be a woman in the US. We're going to dive into that in just a few minutes.

That does wrap up the first hour of the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week from Bloomberg Radio. I'm Tim Staniv. Katie Gradfield is in this week for Carol Masser. Ahead in our next hour, we'll focus on their cover story about the deterioration of women's rights in America, and we'll take you to West Texas it's among the country's most

dangerous places for pregnant women. This is Bloomberg is Bloomberg Business Week inside from the reporters and editors who bring you America's most trusted business magazine, plus global business, finance and tech news As it happened. Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messier and Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stinevik on Bloomberg Radio.

Plenty ahead in our second hour of the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week, including more on what it means to be a woman in modern times, from living in a post Row America to scrolling past the online haters.

First up, though a gripping essay from the magazine that serves as the cover story for this special double issue Business Week Calumness Claire Suddeth joins me and Bloomberg's Katie Greifeld to explain why the undoing of Roevie Wade makes everything far more precarious for American women following fifty years of prosperity. It's a combination of negligence and indifference and

then women's circumstances getting worse. You know, I think women have, as has everyone you know, been coming out of this pandemic, two years of maybe no child care or unreliable child care. You know, millions of women dropped out of the labor force in the depths of the pandemic. I think only I think it's one million still have yet to return to work um and the most common reason given is

that they can't find or afford child's care. We still don't have paid leave for the only wealthy country that doesn't give new moms time off work after they have a baby. We're in this situation where women have been struggling for so long, and then things have been getting you know, immeasurably harder, largely because of COVID, but not entirely. Yet we still are not doing anything about it. You know, we periodically have bills before Congress about maybe we'll give

parents four weeks of paid leave. You know that having had a baby, that's not very much time at all. A baby isn't even legally able to be accepted by a licenseitate care facility at that young age. So many of these bills stall and go nowhere or just flat out fail. Then there's a formula shortage. There's all these other things that keep happening, you know, school shootings, and it just feels to women like this constant barrage of bad news and they just can't get on top of it.

And so the cover of Bloomberg business Week, I absolutely love what the cover looks like, and it has the breaking point in big text right there. And I'm curious, I mean, Okay, if we're at the breaking point now, does anything change? Is there any sort of I don't know, light in at the end of the tunnel that things will get better or just are things as as we look at them now, Uh, just gonna get harder from here. I think in the short term things are going to

get harder. Um, you know, maybe even in the long term. I don't know. It really just depends on what states in the federal government do going forward about all of this. But a lot of these sort of large scale, chronic social issues, no one's really addressing them in a meaningful sort of way. I Um, you know, I think people do want some good news, and I think the good news this is a lot harder to measure. UM. But as women are talking about this more amongst themselves, um,

with men in their lives. Um. And while that's sort of hard to measure or really um, you know, put your finger on that, the mood has shifted. At least you've seen a lot of sort of pieces of legislation stall at the federal level in Congress and various degrees of government. Does that sort of put the onus then on corporations at least, you know, when we're talking about women in their corporate lives to try to make things better, Like could this be used sort of as a recruiting tool?

I think it has for a long time. I mean, you know, when you look at the statistic, I think it's like twenty of workers in the US have access to paid parental leave. Almost all of those workers are white collar workers. And so if you are a company, if you're in tech finance, you know, anything where you're competing for talent um. There's a reason why companies in recent years have expanded their paid leave policies is because it's it makes them more attractive. The issue is that

there's not a trickle down effect. You know, we're still at that, you know, under a quarter of workers. The percentage of low wage workers who get any sort of leave at all is I don't know what the updated number is, but as of last year it was less than ten percent. I think it's nine and so yes and no. I think it's the answer to that because I get the question is sort of like who are

you talking about when you asked that question? Clear you spent a good portion of time over the last few months dedicated to a feature that's in the current issue of Bloomberg Business Week magazine. It's all about part of West Texas that's become a very dangerous place to be pregnant and how it's getting an even scarier there. Texas leads the US in maternity ward closures. What did you

find in your visit to West Texas? Yeah, so I came to this story because I kept reading all of these um like small local stories and local papers all over the country about hospitals closing their maternity wards, and I thought, what, how, how can you close a maternity ward. Doesn't every hospital need to be able to deliver babies? And I looked into it further. In Texas is sort of like the epitome of the problem, and within Texas

the epitome of the problem. There is this town called Alpine, which is in West Texas, truly in the middle of nowhere. I mean three and a half hours I think from El Paso, five hours from San Antonio. And we're not talking driving on an expressway type of road. This is like a highway with no rest stops. And it's the only hospital within a twelve square mile area that delivers babies and um so many nurses burnt out and quit

during the pandemic that it is. I think now is open about five days a week, but for the majority of the past year it's been only able to deliver babies three days a week, which, if you know anything about having a kid um they don't arrive on schedule. You can't say I'll just give birth on Tuesday. Then I guess that's fine line. Um. You know, women do try to schedule induction to to try to work around that,

but even that is like not is not working. And um, because the access to prenatal care is also incredibly low. While being the only hospital, they have a lot of what are called pre term birth, our baby is born really early, um, and they need access to Nike or a needle reonatal intensive care unit and Big Ben doesn't have one, and so they have to medivac these babies out to larger hospitals. Read Clears full essay in the magazine,

available online and on newsstands. Now up next. Internet misogynists are making it harder for women online too. Luckily there's drue f Wallow. She's really kind of established this role for herself, almost this like fulk hero type role going after guys who are kind of awful on the Internet. The story of the TikTok vigilante we don't deserve but desperately need. This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Bloomberg Quick Takes. Tim Stinovik from

Bloomberg Radio. Well. Story featured in the new issue of business Week magazine, written by Alex Barnka, technology reporter for Bloomberg News, is all about how one of TikTok's biggest stars is roasting dudes for misogyny and racism. Alex Brinka's technology reporter for Bloomberg. Also with us is Joel Weber, the editor of Bloomberg business Week. He's with us right now in the Bloomberg Interactive Broker studio. So, Joel, it's

so funny. We're talking about a person named Drew F. Wallow, and you know, we think about the power of the people have with these platforms. She has got seven point five million followers on TikTok. So it's fewer than Justin Bieber, but she's got like as many as Jimmy Fallon, almost as much as Jimmy Fallon and and yet you know, not big, maybe not household name, And it just speaks

to how well uh she owns TikTok. And it was also just totally caught our attention from the moment that Alex of flagged uh this is an option because uh drew in the aftermath of the Supreme Court decision UH that basically you know, upended uh Roe versus Wade. Um, we're thematically talking about that. Uh, this this in this week's issue. Um, and this is a sort of a surprising silver lining to all of that, which is how laughter can actually become a weapon. Alex tell us more

about Drew's approach here. Yeah, and you know, you say she's not a household name, but if you're on TikTok, she is absolutely a household name for better or for some of these um, misogynistic type online trolls. For worse, Drew as a character who's really um increased in popularity over the last year. She we got to chat for this story. She is sharp, she is witty, but she also cares really deeply about women who she says she's protecting.

On the platform. If you see a Drew video in your feed on TikTok, you'll be scrolling and um, a video of a guy will typically pop up saying some pretty awful things. There are either racists, their sexist, uh, they're fat phobic, And then all of a sudden, Drew's face will cut in, usually with her kind of trademark laughter, cackling at these men and she basically kind of dismantles them.

And she does it in a really interesting way. Drew is very smart and clever, and she makes some really like logical points and and basically picks apart these guys with logic. But she also takes these tactics that online trolls are really known for comedy, commenting on people's appearance, telling the guy he's already going bald, and kind of wraps the logic in this wrapper of of the same tactics that online trolls like to use when they go

after women in on the platform. And I'll tell you, I've seen these guys takedown videos or just like completely delete their accounts. They don't take it as well um as maybe some of their victims do. So she's really kind of established this role for herself almost, this like folk hero type role going after guys who are kind of awful on the internet, editorializing too much. The Internet makes it very easy for people to say all sorts

of things. It's also I think something social media platforms have really tried to address, walk us through how maybe that's not enough. Yeah, so the platforms are are a little bit reactive, right. They might ban certain words or allow creators to mute words or block people. But these guys will UM kind of take tactics that that stay

step ahead or trolls to speak more generally. If they are banning things like UM like quote I hate fat women, and folks notice that that language is getting banned or taken down for bullying by the platforms, they'll change tax and say things like I only love men who weigh less women who weigh less than twenty pounds. So um, the platforms are UM, whether it's TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, they all have policies in place to kind of combat bullying.

But look, frankly, UM, these bad actors on the platform move a lot quicker and speak in different languages or use code that is very well recognized by people on the internet. But it's this little bit of a game of kind of whackable. Um. What Drew has been able to do is basically keep up with the times and kind of um, you know, uh, slide a knife through these guys UM online and keep up with what they're saying and how they're kind of skirting these rules. So

there's some things out there. A lot of it depends on UM fans, followers, or people on the platforms to report things themselves. Um, but you know, if you can stay a step ahead and then maybe that hand to hand combat is a little bit more fierce. In the moment, it just feels like you she may have like no shortage of options to pick from. And I'm curious, did you put that towards Earlia? How does she pick who

she takes down? Yeah, so initially she would kind of, um, I'm talking a year and a half ago and she started this, um uh, this kind of path. She would look for guys and find them who are kind of saying awful things. These days, she wakes up to thousands and thousands of notifications across all platforms. She has those

notifications turned off because there are so many of them. Um, but a lot of times now her fans, her followers will actually tag her in videos of people who are going after women or who are uh you know, um slewing racist, misogynistic or fat phobic comments on the platform. There's another camp. Um, there's a lot of folks who like to attack her. So those are coming straight into her notifications as well. Um, but you know, it seems

like there's a lot out there. I will say, Um, she did tell me that it's getting a little bit tougher to find guys that she hasn't roasted before, or subject matter she hasn't roasted before. Um, so you know whether that's because she's doing her job too well as she sees it, or if things are cracking down a little bit. Who knows? She should come over a lot of these things are referrals. Yeah, she should come over to Twitter. I see a lot of this stuff there.

Can you talk a little bit about the business of of somebody with seven point million, seven point five million followers on TikTok, Like, how does she make money? Yeah? Absolutely so. Drew wouldn't divulge exactly how much she makes, but she will say she's making a living off of it. Um. There are a few venues for somebody like her to make money. The platforms do pay out a small amount

if you're in something like TikTok's creat or fund. Um. But when I talked to creators across the platform outside of just Drew, they say that's basically coffee money or lunch money. UM. Where they make a lot of their money is on brand sponsorships. Brand partnerships will they'll post sponsored posts with clothing or other products. Drew also has a podcast, so folks will start to venture outside of the platforms as well for opportunities for advertisers or sponsors

to work with her. That was Bloomberg Technology reporter Alex Barenka, along with Business Week editor Joe Weber and Bloomberg Markets reporter Creedy Gupta, and we salute the entire team from the magazine for their outstanding work on this issue. Still to come on Bloomberg business Week, a Silicon Valley veteran has a new playbook for both aspiring and established workplace leaders. The mana church job is to help a group of people be able to achieve more together. So how did

they do that? Tech entrepreneur Julie Zoo explains that and more. Up next, This is Bloomberg Broadcasting from the financial capital of the World, Bloomberg E Love in Frio in New York to Washington, d C. Bloomberg to Boston, Bloomberg one O six one is San Francisco, Bloomberg Name sixty to the country Sirius XM Chado one nine team and around the globe, the Bloomberg Business app and Bloomberg Radio dot Com.

This is Bloomberg Business Week. Greidfeld and I have been in here chatting about what it's like to be a manager. And you know what, spoiler alert, neither of us are managers. Know somehow, I'm not in charge of a single person other than myself. It's probably a good thing for both of us. I know, it's a lot of work. It's really interesting because it's something that Julie Zoo writes about. She's the co founder of the tech advisory firm In Spirit and also the author of the Making of a Manager.

What did you when everyone looks to you? So I was years old. I had just joined a scrappy start up three years prior. It was a little college social networking at the time called Facebook heard of it. Luckily for me, you know, to start up grew and grew, and so within a couple of years we had added a lot more people. And since I was one of the early people there, one day my manager turned to me and said, you know, we have four new designers joining next week and I don't have time to meet

with them. Why don't you be their manager? And at this point, you know, I had no training at this about how to lead, how to manage, but yet I found myself in this situation needing to ramp up new people and help our team grow. And this is a very common story in Silicon Valley or in any context where a small team starts to take on bigger and bigger goals. Uh. And that is how I found myself in that role. Um, without that preparation, I made every single mistake in the book about learning how it is

to manage and lead people. And ultimately, some years later, I decided to write all that down and UM, hopefully make it seem like I'm having a coffee chat with somebody else finding themselves in that situation. And so I mean, if you could go back in time and talk to younger Julie Newly in that situation, what would you say? What would be the main bullet point there? The most important thing I would tell somebody in that situation here is what the job of a manager is. Because here's

the thing. We grow up. We watch movies. We have a sense of like, what does the boss do right? And we think about the boss that the person who makes decisions, the person who hires and fires people, the person who gets to tell everyone else you know, what's right and how things go. And the reality is, in my experience like, that's not really what great managers do. So the first thing I wanted from to understand is

what exactly is the job of management? And very simply I define it as the manager's job is to help a group of people be able to achieve more together. So how do they do that right? How do they actually get a group of talented people to achieve more together? There are three main levels that a manager has. The first is people. You know, you need to bring in talented people who have the skills to be able to do what the group wants to do together. The second

is process. So you have all of these great people, okay, how should they work together? You know? How do they come up with new ideas? How do they resolve disagreements? Who should do what? You know? How does the work get divided? And finally, purpose, which is defining what does success look like for this group of people? How do we know what a good job is? How do we know what a great job is? How do we know

what a mediocre job is? All that has to be shared in terms of all of the members on the team in order for this to two team to go on and do great things. I'm wondering about people who may not be managers yet and may not even aspire to be managers, and how you know we talked about this idea of managing up and the idea of working with your bosses in a way that is productive. What

advice do you have for people in those situations? The most important advice I have for somebody when they think about managing up is make sure you know these two things. Make sure that your manager knows what you aspire for, what your goals. Goals are in your career. Do you want to get a promotion? Do you want to manage one? Did? Do you want to take on big projects? Or or you know, are you very happy doing what you're doing? You know, what kind of projects are you excited to

take on? What kind of challenges are meaningful? And what kind of things do you hate doing? Make sure your manager understands that, right, So ask yourselves, does my manager understand what my aspirations are, what my strengths are, what my weaknesses are? And if not, go ahead and tell them right, tell them in a one on what make

sure they know. And the second question is do you want to understand what success for my manager looks like in regards to what I can do to help them, because if you don't feel like you know what your manager is aspiring for in regards to the team that you're a part of, or what success for you looks like you know you were to be basically talking past each other. So both of these things need to be true and if they're not clear, that's what you know. Time with the manager in one on one at eis

four right. Make sure they understand your goals. Make sure you understand their goals. That's Julie's zoo. She's co founder at in Spirit and her new book is called The Making of a Manager, What to Do When Everyone looks to you. It's out now. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week coming up an insider's take on the New York real estate market. Can you imagine trying to rent a studio for four thousand dollars a month? And most of these guys don't realize just half fast the product moving,

I would venture the guest right now. Product is on the market for less than three days plus. The CEO of Sentient Jet tells us why the business of private aviation is taking off. This is Bloomberg. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stinovich from Bloomberg Radio. We're wrapping up this weekend's program with a pair of guests who respective businesses revolve around two big ticket items, Manhattan apartments and private jets.

We'll start with real estate, and despite rising interest rates and declining home sales nationally, prices here in the Big Apple are still soaring. For more insight into the key trends to watch in New York City's housing scene, Carol Masser and I spoke with Francis Katson. She's founder of the Cats and team at the residential brokerage firm Douglas Element. There's such a disconnect between the commercial and the residential.

The residential has seemed to actually outperform expectation all the time, even amongst and nine point one percent installation, even amongst interest rate hikes. We're seeing such an interesting trump, uh you know, sort of a patent. You know. This year alone, condom median sales prices are up fourteen point one percent against last year, which was the run up inverted commas.

So there seems to be this really niche demand for people wanting to diversify from their portfolio back into real estate because there's been a capitulation over the past couple of months. So Frances, are they just buying real estate as an investment and not living in it or so what's happened is that you've got two types of vice. You've got people who want to actually diversify with kN thirty one money buying into these homes and actually getting

an absolute sugar high on their rentals. The rental market is up year of a year with less than two percent vacancy rate, with an average trading price for a studio of four thousand dollars, which means that it's on a sugar high like no One's scene, which is allowing people to get a performer into effect that gives them

a good a good, a good rent roll. The end user is also taking advantage because although the rates have gone up, there's still this potential value because when there's uncertainty, there's negotiability. What about when it comes to foreign buyers. Here what we saw was a very big change during COVID because there were some countries that were not going to be compliant with the FDA COVID requirements. Coming back into the US, such as China and Russia. So what

we had was very specific buyers coming in. Now what we're seeing since the floodgates, if you will, have opened up, we've got a nice return of cash from overseas. A lot of people are coming into the luxury sector. That's the luxury meaning over four million. This past week we saw twenty one contracts signed, which is eight contracts up above the week prior. And we're seeing a lot of people wanting to come back and park their cash in

New York. When we start seeing prices like this, to me, it says it's getting a litttle bit hot and at some point this has got to call, well, the sales market will adjust, and I think we're seeing that now. I think right now with the GDP at a negative point nine percent, some would say that we are in a recession. Some would say we're not. The market has cooled on its price for square foot performance, but the

velocity has changed. By simple virtue, there's not a lot of inventory right now because people don't want to sell down on their assets. So there's this pent up demand for the remaining prospects who want to get in and get out of paying sugar high rental and get back into owning equity. Where are you seeing any signs of slowdown right now? Because you have the entire spectrum when it comes to listings, are you seeing any part of it slowdown? That's such a great question because you are

seeing such a breakdown on segments. The entry market is the most impacted because they need the most compelling interest rate in order to buy in with not a lot of wage growth. It's very tough to make when you've got such high rental markets and people wanting to get out of being extorted on that. They want to own equity, but it's really tough. If the rates are going up, it squashes that segment because they have the least to

spend and the most to lose. On the luxury side, they're not so dependent neither is foreign money on necessarily an interest rate. So you're finding that these particular customers are ready to play and are coming in to get a deal, and there's a there's a conversation to be had between the extreme of what we want to achieve on the sale price and where the biased fuel inherent

value is. I'll describe the rental market right now because if you're if you're a renter, if you're just moving to New York, you're in a tough spot right now. Very I mean, can you imagine trying to rent a studio for four thousand dollars a month and you have to be able to show forty five times the asking rent in their accounts. It's brutal, that's insane. And most of these guys don't realize just how fast the products moving. It's not like you walk in and take a week

and a half to think about it. Product is getting snapped up within hours. There's a there's a stat right now on Jonathan Miller on the Miller Samuel's Report that shows that products on the market for less than nine days. I would venture to guest right now product is on the market for less than three days on it. It's that fast. That was Francis Katson, founder of the Cats and team at Douglas Eleman. So we know real estate prices are on the ascent, and you know what else

is sky high interest in private jets. Aviation consulting from our US International reported back in June that private air traffic is fifteen percent higher than it was two years ago. One of the beneficiaries is Andrew Collins. He's president and CEO of Sentient CHET. We saw the addressable market expand per se right. A lot of hidden people, hidden customers that you know, really took a pandemic to bring them out.

They might have been a little fiscally conservative, or they might have thought about the sustainability issue, but at the end of the day, they came out and products like ours. We invented the jet cards, so you pre buy twenty five hours at a time. When you utilize a service

like that, you tend to get used to it. And so I don't think all the new entrants that came in and the expanded you know, amount of and the velocity by which you know, the volume came I don't know that that will remain exactly as it stands, but a good portion of it is. We're very busy this summer. Despite you know, raising rates and fuel surcharges and everything else, there is a voracious appetite for flying and traveling. Right now, are you back to pre pandemic levels? We are well

passed pre pandemic levels. And is most of it leisure or is it a combination of leisure? A little tricky, a little tricky because you know, it used to be I could tell you was six corporate, it was leisure, etcetera. Now it's very much hard to track because it's a lot of individuals, a lot of individual flying. Uh, they might be just expensing it. You have no idea. In some cases you'd have to look at kind of time

of day and what don't know. I mean, a corporate credit card goes through, right, doesn't it um well, because when with our card, you actually deposit money and then we just dub it down, So we'll never really know if you're using it for business or not unless you did set it up as a business account. Okay, but somebody pays, someone does pay for it. Yeah, and it's a lot of times it's a primary customer and it's

in their name at the end of the day. Though you can tell, like you can tell certain routes and you can see things come back. Teeter Borrow's come back a lot, Westchester's come back. You know, Van Nye's come back. So there's a lot of business travel out there that's almost sneaky, but it's definitely happening. Do you anticipate a reversion to the mean, as we do ease out of the pandemic and we and you get back to pre pandemic levels which were significantly lower than they are now,

people become more comfortable on commercial travel. Well, I think that commercial has got a long way to go. And that's you know, without disrespect to my commercial brethren, but there's a lot of people that left the airline industry and they're not coming back, or pilots and crews retired, so there's a lot of challenges there. Over in Europe it's even worse. So right now you're seeing private jetscent year over year growth due to the fact that it's

just very difficult to travel throughout Europe. And uh now, I don't I don't know that I see a lot of return yet. It just doesn't feel like that. It feels like in the fall and in the winter, especially this peak period. We're gearing up for a very big peak period during the winter. Do you have all the workers that you need or that you want, You have to be very aggressive. So we've done a lot of

aggressive work. We've done a lot of recruiting. We've hired a lot of aggressive We're paying them more and we're talking to a lot more people. You know, it takes a lot more to fill oncelot, so we're doing a lot. We're also doing not everybody can be a pilot. No, not everybody can be a pilot. There's a lot of work it goes around being a pilot. But to get crews, for instance, yeah, you have to you have to pay more. Hey, and you want to talk on a touch on the

sustainability efforts. You mentioned people who have been previously concerned about the environmental impact of perhaps traveling private might not have the same concerns now. It does emit a lot of c R two. I mean we're talking tons and tons per single plane per hour literal tons. What are you doing to to offset that and to to kind of, you know, make customers feel better about their environmental impact,

so that you have a lot of different choices. You can do nothing and people will still pay and come on and fly. You can do a simple carbon offset or you know a lot of people will offer access to a carbon offset service or something like that. We actually don't charge our customers and we do three off setting. So we invest millions of dollars in the background to do emissions offsetting. So we go a little bit further. We go into the water vapors, the aerosols and nitrous

ox sides, the things that actually make the difference. I would argue that we probably are doing one of the largest sustainability efforts in private aviation, and so we do it with a partner. But um, it's not an additional cost to our customer, and every flight is offset three. So in the first half of the year, we probably did the equivalent. If I was to compare it to things, UM, it's the equivalent of planting five million trees or providing energy to your average you know town in America for

a full year. Um, it's it's a lot, and we're just getting used to it, and we're just learning it and we're just experimenting with things. But we're trying to push our industry to do a lot more. I agree push push, push away. UM, I love carbon offsetting. What about carbon negative efforts where we're actually reducing the carbon in the atmosphere, which many would argue that that's what we need to do to save this planet. You've got to look at a lot of things. You've got to

look at sustainable aviation fuel. I think you've got to look at a lot of ways to you know, one of the offshoots of the pandemic that's great is that it's virtual, so you're not doing a lot around the office as much and things like that. So we're looking at a lot of different ways to handle sustainability. I would tell you though, the biggest push that can happen is an electric and what they're calling V talls, and you know, as a company, we have two talls on

order for both you know, Europe and North America. When you get those, um, I hope knock on wood in four to five years. That was Andrew Collins. He's president and CEO of Sentia Jet. And that wraps up the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week from Bloomberg Radio. Thanks so much for joining us. I'm Tim Stenovik. Be sure to tune into Bloomberg Business Week Monday through Friday. It starts at two pm Wall Street Time on Bloomberg Radio.

You can also watch our daily broadcast on YouTube. Just search Bloomberg Global News and check out our Bloomberg Business Week podcast. You can find that at Bloomberg dot com, Apple or wherever you get your podcasts. Bloomberg Business Week is available on newsstands now, at bloomberg dot com and on the Bloomberg terminal. You can also see me on Bloomberg Quicktake available on bloomberg dot com, slash Qt, and streaming platforms like Roku, Apple TV, Samsung TV and more.

Have a great weekend everyone. This is bloomberg S